How to format your references using the ACS Chemical Biology citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for ACS Chemical Biology. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Download the output style file
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most reference managers.
BibTeX	BibTeX styles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

(1)

Garrett, W. S. Cancer and the Microbiota. Science 2015, 348 (6230), 80–86.

A journal article with 2 authors

(1)

Schubert, E. F.; Kim, J. K. Solid-State Light Sources Getting Smart. Science 2005, 308 (5726), 1274–1278.

A journal article with 3 authors

(1)

Polleux, F.; Morrow, T.; Ghosh, A. Semaphorin 3A Is a Chemoattractant for Cortical Apical Dendrites. Nature 2000, 404 (6778), 567–573.

A journal article with 4 or more authors

(1)

Fang, W.; Lu, H.-L.; King, G. F.; St Leger, R. J. Construction of a Hypervirulent and Specific Mycoinsecticide for Locust Control. Sci. Rep. 2014, 4, 7345.

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

(1)

Woolf, G. Tales of the Barbarians; Wiley-Blackwell: Oxford, UK, 2011.

An edited book

(1)

Modern Advances in Applied Intelligence: 27th International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Other Applications of Applied Intelligent Systems, IEA/AIE 2014, Kaohsiung, Taiwan, June 3-6, 2014, Proceedings, Part II; Ali, M., Pan, J.-S., Chen, S.-M., Horng, M.-F., Eds.; Lecture Notes in Computer Science; Springer International Publishing: Cham, 2014; Vol. 8482.

A chapter in an edited book

(1)

Belvisi, M. G.; Hele, D. J. Cough Sensors. III. Opioid and Cannabinoid Receptors on Vagal Sensory Nerves. In Pharmacology and Therapeutics of Cough; Chung, K. F., Widdicombe, J., Eds.; Hofmann, F., Series Ed.; Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology; Springer: Berlin, Heidelberg, 2009; pp 63–76.

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for ACS Chemical Biology.

Blog post

(1)

Luntz, S. People Who Suffer Migraines Have Different Mouth Bacteria. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/people-who-suffer-migraines-have-different-mouth-bacteria/ (accessed 2018-10-30)

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

(1)

Government Accountability Office. Space Funding: NASA’s Appropriations and DOD’s Funding Estimates for Space Programs; NSIAD-87-81FS; U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, 1987.

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

(1)

Chan, A. B. Beyond Dynamic Textures: A Family of Stochastic Dynamical Models for Video with Applications to Computer Vision. Doctoral dissertation, University of California San Diego, 2008.

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

(1)

Rothenberg, B. Top-Ranked Players Murray and Kerber Are Eliminated in Fourth Round. New York Times. January 22, 2017, p D5.

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by sequential numbers in superscript:

This sentence cites one reference ¹.
This sentence cites two references ^1,2.
This sentence cites four references ^1–4.

About the journal

Full journal title	ACS Chemical Biology
Abbreviation	ACS Chem. Biol.
ISSN (print)	1554-8929
ISSN (online)	1554-8937
Scope	Biochemistry Molecular Medicine General Medicine